EULOGY 


PRONOUNCED  AT  THE  FUNERAL  OF 


GEORGE     PEABODY, 


AT   PEABODY,  MASSACHUSETTS, 


8  Febkuaky,  1870. 


HON.  ROBERT   C.  WINTHROP,  LL.D. 


PRESIDENT    OF    THE    PEABODY    EDUCATION    FUND. 


SECOND     EDITION. 


N 


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EULOGY 


PRONOUNCED  AT  THE  FUNERAL  OF 


GEORGE    PEABODY. 


AT    PEABODY,  MASSACHUSETTS, 


8  February,   1870. 


BY 


HON.  ROBERT   C.  WINTHROP,  LL.D., 

PRESIDENT   OF    THE    PEABODY    EDUCATION    FUND. 


SECOND   EDITION. 


BOSTON: 

PRESS    OF   JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON. 

1870. 


T^T^HILE  I  have  been  unwilling,  my  friends, 
wholly  to  decline  the  request  of  your  Com- 
mittee of  Arrangements,  or  to  seem  wanting  to  any 
service  which  might,  perchance,  have  gratified  him, 
whom,  in  common  with  3'ou  all,  T  have  so  honored 
and  loved,  —  I  have  still  felt  deeply,  and  I  cannot 
help  feeling,  at  this  moment,  more  deepl}'^  than  ever 
before,  that  any  words  of  mine  or  of  others  might 
well  have  been  spared  on  this  occasion. 

The  solemn  tones  of  the  organ,  the  plaintive 
notes  of  the  funeral  chant,  the  consoling  lessons  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  the  fervent  utterances  of 
prayer  and  praise,  —  these  would  have  seemed  to 
me  the  only  appropriate  —  I  had  almost  said,  the 
only  endurable  —  interruptions  of  the  silent  sorrow 
which  befits  a  scene  like  this. 

Even  were  it  possible  for  me  to  add  any  thing, 
worth  adding,  to  the  tributes  on  both  sides  of  the 


ocean,  which  already  have  well-nigh  exhausted  the 
language  of  eulogy,  —  the  formal  phrases  of  a  de- 
tailed memoir,  or  of  a  protracted  and  studied  pan- 
egyric, would  congeal  upon  my  lips,  and  fall 
frozen  upon  the  ears  and  hearts  of  all  whom  I  ad- 
dress, in  presence  of  the  lifeless  form  of  one,  who 
has  so  long  been  the  support,  the  ornament,  the 
dear  delight,  of  this  village  of  his  nativity. 

We  cannot,  indeed,  any  of  us,  gather  around 
these  cherished  remains,  and  prepare  to  commit 
them,  tenderly  and  affectionately,  to  their  mother 
earth,  without  a  keen  sense  of  personal  affliction 
and  bereavement.  He  was  too  devoted  and  loving 
a  brother;  he  was  too  kind  and  thoughtful  a  kins- 
man; he  was  too  genial  and  steadfast  a  friend,  not 
to  be  missed  and  mourned  by  those  around  me,  as 
few  others  have  ever  been  missed  and  mourned  here 
before.  I  am  not  insensible  to  my  own  full  share 
of  the  private  and  public  grief  which  pervades  this 
community. 

And  yet,  my  friends,  it  is,  by  no  means,  sorrow 
alone,  which  may  well  be  indulged  by  us  all  at  such 
an  hour  as  this.  Other  emotions,  I  hazard  nothing 
in  saying,  far  other  emotions  besides  those  of  grief, 
are,  even  now,  rising  and  swelling  in  all  our  hearts, 
—  emotions  of  pride,  emotions  of  joy,  emotions  of 
triumph. 


Am  I  not  right?  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise?. What  a  career  has  that  been,  of  which 
the  final  scene  is  now,  at  length,  before  us!  Who 
can  contemplate  its  rise  and  progress,  from  the 
lowly  cradle  in  this  South  Parish  of  old  Danvers  — 
henceforth  to  be  known  of  all  men  by  his  name  — ■ 
to  the  temporary  repose  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
followed  by  that  august  procession  across  the  At- 
lantic, whose  wake  upon  the  waters  will  glow  and 
sparkle  to  the  end  of  time,  growing  more  and 
more  luminous  with  the  lapse  of  years,  —  who,  I 
say,  can  contemplate  that  career,  from  its  hum- 
ble commencement  to  its  magnificent  completion, 
without  an  irrepressible  thrill  of  admiration,  and 
almost  of  rapture? 

Who,  certainly,  can  contemplate  the  immediate 
close  of  this  extraordinary  life  without  rejoicing, 
not  only  that  it  was  so  painless,  so  peaceful,  so 
happy  in  itself;  not  only  that  it  was  so  provi- 
dentially postponed  until  he  had  been  enabled, 
once  more,  to  revisit  his  native  land,  to  complete 
his  great  American  benefactions,  to  hold  personal 
intercourse  with  those  friends  at  the  South  for 
whose  welfare  the  largest  and  most  cherished  of 
those  benefactions  was  designed,  and  tc  take  solemn 
leave  of  those  to  whom  he  was  bound  by  so  many 
ties  of  affection  or  of  blood,  —  but  that  it  occurred 


at  a  time,  and  under  circumstances,  so  peculiarly 
fortunate  for  attracting  the  largest  attention,  and  for 
giving  the  widest  impression  and  influence,  to  his 
great  and  inspiring  example  ? 

For  this,  precisely  this,  as  I  believe,  would 
have  been  the  most  gratifying  consideration  to  our 
lamented  friend  himself,  could  he  have  distinctly 
foreseen  all  that  has  happened,  since  he  left  you  a 
few  months  since.  Could  it  have  been  foretold 
him,  as  he  embarked,  with  feeble  strength  and 
faltering  steps,  on  board  his  favorite  Scotia,  at 
New  York,  on  the  29th  of  September  last,  not 
merely  that  he  was  leaving  kinsfolk  and  friends 
and  native  land  for  the  last  time,  but  that  hardly 
four  weeks  would  have  elapsed,  after  his  arrival 
at  Liverpool,  before  he  should  be  the  subject  of 
funeral  honors,  by  command  of  the  Qiieen  of  Eng- 
land, and  should  lie  down,  for  a  time,  beneath  the 
consecrated  arches  of  that  far-famed  Minster,  among 
the  kings  and  counsellors  of  the  earth;  —  could  it 
have  been  foretold  him,  that  his  acts  would  be  the 
theme  of  eloquent  tributes  from"  high  prelates  of  the 
Church,  and  from  the  highest  Minister  of  the  Crown, 
and  that  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  — 
not  alwa3's,  nor  often,  alas!  in  perfect  accord  — 
should  vie  with  each  other  in  furnishing  their  proud- 
est  national  ships  to  escort  his  remains  over  the 


ocean,  exhibiting  such  a  funeral  fleet  as  the  world, 
in  all  its  history,  had  never  witnessed  before;  — 
could  all  this  have  been  whispered  in  his  ear,  as  it 
was  catching  those  last  farewells  of  relatives  and 
friends,  —  he  must,  indeed,  have  been  more  than 
mortal,  not  to  have  experienced  some  unwonted 
emotions  of  personal  gratification  and  pride. 

But  I  do  believe,  from  all  I  have  ever  seen  or 
known  of  him,  —  and  few  others,  at  home  or 
abroad,  have  of  late  enjoyed  more  of  his  con- 
fidence, —  that  far,  far  above  any  feelings  of  this 
sort,  his  great  heart  would  have  throbbed,  as  it 
never  throbbed  before,  with  gratitude  to  God  and 
man,  that  the  example  which  he  had  given  to 
the  world,  —  by  employing  the  wealth  which  he 
had  accumulated,  during  a  long  life  of  industry 
and  integrity,  in  relieving  the  wants  of  his  fellow- 
men  wherever  they  were  most  apparent  to  him; 
in  providing  lodgings  for  the  poor  of  London;  in 
providing  education  for  the  children  of  our  own 
desolated  South;  in  building  a  Memorial  Church 
for  the  parish  in  which  his  mother  had  worshipped; 
in  founding  or  endowing  institutes  and  libraries 
and  academies  of  science  in  the  town  in  which 
he  was  born,  in  the  city  in  which  he  had  longest 
resided,  and  in  so  many  other  places  with  which, 
for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  he  had  been  con- 


8 


nected,  —  that  this  grand  and  glorious  example, 
of  munificence  and  beneficence,  would  thus  be  so 
signally  held  up  to  the  contemplation  of  mankind, 
in  a  way  not  only  to  commend  it  to  their  remem- 
brance and  regard,  but  to  command  for  it  their  re- 
spect and  imitation.  This,  I  feel  assured,  he  would 
have  felt  to  be  the  accomplishment  of  the  warmest 
wish  of  his  heart;  the  consummation  of  the  most 
cherished  object  of  his  life. 

Our  lamented  friend  was  not,  indeed,  without 
ambition.  He  not  only  liked  to  do  grand  things, 
but  he  liked  to  do  them  in  a  grand  way.  We  all 
remember  those  sumptuous  and  princely  banquets, 
with  which  he  sometimes  diversified  the  habitual 
simplicity  and  frugality  of  his  daily  life.  He  was 
not  without  a  decided  taste  for  occasional  dis- 
play, —  call  it  even  ostentation,  if  you  will.  We 
certainly  may  not  ascribe  to  him  a  pre-eminent 
measure  of  that  sort  of  charity  which  shuns  public- 
ity, which  shrinks  from  observation,  and  which, 
according  to  one  of  our  Saviour's  well-remembered 
injunctions,  "doeth  its  alms  in  secret."  He  may, 
or  he  may  not,  have  exercised  as  much  of  this  kind 
of  beneficence,  as  any  of  those  in  similar  condition 
around  him.  I  fully  believe  that  he  did.  We  all 
understand,  however,  that 

"  Of  that  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life, 
His  little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love," 


there  can  be  no  record  except  on  high,  —  or  in  the 
grateful  hearts  of  those  who  have  been  aided  and 
relieved.  That  record  shall  be  revealed  hereafter. 
The  world  can  know  little  or  nothing  of  it  now. 

But  any  one  must  perceive,  at  a  glance,  that  the 
sort  of  charit}'  which  our  lamented  friend  illustrated 
and  exercised,  was  wholly  incompatible  with  con- 
cealment or  reserve.  The  great  Trusts  which  he 
established,  the  great  Institutions  which  he  founded, 
the  capacious  and  costly  Edifices  which  he  erected, 
were  things  that  could  not  be  hid,  which  could  not 
be  done  in  a  corner.  They  were,  in  their  own  in- 
trinsic and  essential  nature,  patent  to  the  world's 
eye.  He  could  not  have  performed  these  noble 
acts  in  his  lifetime,  as  it  was  his  peculiar  choice  to 
do,  and  as  it  will  be  his  peculiar  distinction  and 
glory  to  have  done,  without  suffering  himself  "  to  be 
seen  of  men;"  without  being  known,  and  recognized, 
and  celebrated  as  their  author.  He  must  have  post- 
poned them  all,  as  others  have  done,  for  posthumous 
execution;  he  must  have  refrained  from  parting 
with  his  millions  until  death  should  have  wrested 
them  from  a  reluctant  grasp,  —  had  he  shrunk  from 
the  notoriety  and  celebrity  which  inevitably  attend 
upon  such  a  career. 

He  did  not  fail  to  remember,  however,  —  for  he 
was  no  stranger  to  the  Bible,  —  that  there  were  at 


lO 


least  two  modes  of  doing  good  commended  in  Holy 
Writ.  He  did  not  forget,  that  the  same  glorious 
gospel,  nay,  that  the  same  incomparable  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  which  said,  "  Let  not  thy  left  hand  know 
what  thy  right  hand  doeth,"  said,  also,  "Let  your 
light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  see  your 
good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven."  This,  this  might  almost  be  regarded  as 
the  chosen  motto  of  his  later  life,  and  might,  not 
inappropriately,  be  inscribed  as  such  on  his  tomb- 
stone. 

Certainly,  my  friends,  his  light  has  shone  before 
men.  Certainly,  they  have  seen  his  good  works. 
And  who  shall  doubt  that  they  have  glorified  his 
Father  which  is  in  heaven  ?  Yes,  glory  to  God, 
glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  has,  I  am  persuaded, 
swollen  up  from  the  hearts  of  millions,  in  both  hemi- 
spheres, with  a  new  fervor,  as  they  have  followed 
him  in  his  grand  circumnavigation  of  benevolence, 
and  as  they  have  witnessed,  one  after  another,  his 
multifold  and  magnificent  endowments.  And  his 
own  heart,  I  repeat,  would  have  throbbed  and 
thrilled,  as  it  never  thrilled  or  throbbed  before,  with 
gratitude  to'  God  and  man,  could  he  have  foreseen 
that  the  matchless  example  of  munificence,  which 
it  had  been  the  cherished  aim  of  his  later  years  to 
exhibit,  w^ould   be    rendered,  as   it  has  now  been 


II 


rendered,  so  signal,  so  Inspiring,  so  enduring,  so 
immortal,  by  the  homage  which  has  been  paid  to 
his  memory  by  the  princes  and  potentates,  as  well 
as  by  the  poor,  of  the  Old  World,  and  by  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  whole  people  of  his  own  beloved 
Country. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  exhibition  of  this  example, 
as  having  been  the  cherished  aim  of  his  later  years; 
but  I  am  not  without  authority  for  saying,  that  it 
was  among  the  fondest  wishes  of  his  whole  mature 
life.  I  cannot  forget,  that,  in  one  of  those  confiden- 
tial consultations  with  which  he  honored  me  some 
years  since,  after  unfolding  his  plans,  and  telling 
me  substantially  all  that  he  designed  to  do,  —  for, 
almost  every  thing  he  did  was  of  his  own  original 
designing,  —  and  when  I  was  filled  with  admiration 
and  amazement  at  the  magnitude  and  sublimity  of 
his  purposes,  he  said  to  me,  with  that  guileless  sim- 
plicity which  characterized  so  much  of  his  social 
intercourse  and  conversation,  "Why,  Mr.  Winthrop, 
this  is  no  new  idea  to  me.  From  the  earliest  years 
of  my  manhood,  I  have  contemplated  some  such 
disposition  of  my  property  ;  and  I  have  prayed  my 
Heavenly  Father,  day  by  day,  that  I  might  be  en- 
abled, before  I  died,  to  show  my  gratitude  for  the 
blessings  which  He  has  bestowed  upon  me,  by  do- 
ing some  great  good  to  my  fellow-men." 


12 


Well  has  the  living  Laureate  of  England  sung, 

in  one  of  his  latest  published  poems,  — 

"  More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of." 

That  prayer  has  been  heard  and  answered.  That 
noble  aspiration  has  been  more  than  fulfilled.  The 
judgment  of  the  future  will  confirm  the  opinion  of 
the  hourj  and  History,  instead  of  contenting  her- 
self with  merely  enrolling  his  name,  in  chronologi- 
cal or  alphabetical  order,  as  one  among  the  many 
benefactors  of  mankind,  will  assign  him  —  unless  I 
greatly  mistake  her  verdict — a  place  by  himself,  far 
above  all  competition  or  comparison,  first  without 
a  second,  as  having  done  the  greatest  good  for  the 
greatest  number  of  his  fellow-men,  —  so  far,  at  least, 
as  pecuniary  means  could  accomplish  such  a  result, 
—  of  which  there  has  thus  far  been  any  authentic 
record  in  merely  human  annals. 

It  would  afford  a  most  inadequate  measure  of  his 
munificence,  were  I  to  sum  up  the  dollars  or  the 
pounds  he  has  distributed;  or  the  number  of  persons 
whom  his  perennial  provisions,  for  dwellings  or  for 
schools,  will  have  included,  in  years  to  come,  on  one 
side  of  the  Atlantic  or  the  other.  Tried  even  by 
this  narrow  test,  his  beneficence  has  neither  prece- 
dent nor  parallel.  But  it  is,  as  having  attracted 
and   compelled    the    attention    of  mankind    to    the 


13 

beauty,  the  nobleness,  the  true  glory  of  living  and 
doing  for  others  ;  it  is,  as  having  raised  the  stand- 
ard of  munificence  to  a  degree  which  has  almost 
made  it  a  new  thing  in  the  world ;  it  is,  as  having 
exhibited  a  wisdom  and  a  discrimination  in  select- 
ing the  objects,  and  in  arranging  the  machinery,  of 
his  bounty,  which  almost  entitle  him  to.  the  credit 
of  an  inventor ;  it  is,  as  having,  in  the  words  of  the 
brilliant  Gladstone,  "  taught  us  how  a  man  may  be 
the  master  of  his  fortune,  and  not  its  slave ; "  it  is, 
as  having  discarded  all  considerations  of  caste, 
creed,  condition,  nationality,  in  his  world-wide 
philanthropy,  regarding  nothing  human  as  alien  to 
him  ;  it  is,  as  having  deliberately  stripped  himself 
in  his  lifetime  of  the  property  he  had  so  laboriously 
acquired;  delighting  as  much  in  devising  modes  of 
bestowing  his  wealth,  as  he  had  ever  done  in  con- 
triving plans  for  its  increase  and  accumulation; 
literally  throwing  out  his  bags  like  some  adventur- 
ous aeronaut,  who  would  mount  higher  and  higher 
to  the  skies;  and  really  exulting  as  he  calculated, 
from  time  to  time,  how  little  of  all  his  laborious 
earnings  he  had  at  last  left  for  himself;  it  is,  as 
having  furnished  this  new  and  living  and  magnetic 
example,  which  can  never  be  lost  to  history,  never 
be  lost  to  the  interests  of  humanity,  never  fail  to 
attract,  inspire,  and   stimulate   the   lovers    of  their 


H 

fellow-men,  as  long  as  human  wants  and  human 
wealth  shall  coexist  upon  the  earth,  —  it  is  in  this 
way,  that  our  lamented  friend  has  attained  a  pre- 
eminence among  the  benefactors  of  his  ^age  and 
race,  like  that  of  Washington  among  patriots,  or 
that  of  Shakespeare  or  Milton  among  poets. 

I  do  not  altogether  forget  those  Maecenases  of  old, 
whom  philosophers  and  poets  have  so  delighted  to 
extol.  I  do  not  forget  the  passing  tribute  of  the 
great  Roman  orator  to  one  of  the  publicans  of  his 
own  period,  as  having  displayed  an  incredible  be- 
nignity in  amassing  a  vast  fortune,  not  "as  the  prey 
of  avarice,  but  as  the  instrument  of  doing  good."  I 
do  not  forget  the  founders  of  the  Royal  Exchange 
in  London,  and  of  the  noble  hospital  in  Edinburgh; 
the  princely  merchant  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  day,  or 
the  "Jingling  Geordie "  of  England's  first  King 
James.  I  do  not  forget  how  strikingly  Edmund 
Burke  foreshadowed  our  lamented  friend,  when  he 
said  of  one  of  his  own  contemporaries,  "  His  for- 
tune is  among  the  largest,  —  a  fortune  which,  wholly 
unencumbered,  as  it  is,  without  one  single  charge 
from  luxury,  vanity,  or  excess,  sinks  under  the  be- 
nevolence of  its  dispenser.  This  private  benevo- 
lence, expanding  itself  into  patriotism,  renders  his 
whole  being  the  estate  of  the  public,  in  which  he 
has  not  reserved  a  feculium  for  himself,  of  profit. 


15 

diversion,  or  relaxation."  I  do  not  forget  the  Baron 
de  Monthyon,  of  France,  whose  noble  benefactions 
are  annually  distributed  by  the  Imperial  Academy, 
and  whose  portrait  has  been  combined  with  that 
of  our  own  Franklin  on  a  medal  commemorative  of 
their  kindred  beneficence.  I  recall,  too,  the  refrain 
of  an  ode  to  a  late  munificent  English  duke,  on  the 
erection  of  his  statue  at  Belvoir  Castle,  which  might 
well  have  been  sung  again,  when  Story's  statue  of 
our  friend  was  so  gracefully  unveiled  by  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  — 

"  Oh,  my  brethren,  what  a  glory 
To  the  world  is  one  good  man! " 

Nor  do  I  fail  to  remember  the  long  roll  of  benefac- 
tors, dead  and  living,  of  whom  our  own  age,  and 
vour  own  country,  and  our  mother  country,  —  New 
England  and  Old  England,  —  may  so  justly  boast. 
But  no  one  imagines  that  either  Caius  Curius,  or 
Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  or  George  Heriot,  or  Sir 
George  Savile,  or  any  Duke  of  Rutland,  or  Mon- 
thyon, or  Franklin,  or  any  of  the  later  and  larger 
benefactors  of  our  own  time  or  land,  can  ever  vie  in 
historic  celebrity,  as  a  practical  philanthropist,  with 
him  whom  we  bury  here  to-da3\ 

Think  me  not  unmindful,  my  friends,  that,  for  the 
manifestation  of  a  true  spirit  of  benevolence,  two 
mites  will   suffice  as  well  as  untold  millions,  —  a 


i6 


cup  ot  cold  water,  as  well  as  a  treasure-house  of 
silver  and  gold.  Think  me  not  unmindful,  either, 
of  the  grand  and  glorious  results,  for  the  welfare  of 
mankind,  which  have  been  accomplished  by  purely 
moral  or  religious  influences;  by  personal  toil  and 
trust,  by  the  force  of  Christian  character  and  exam- 
ple, by  the  exercise  of  some  great  gifts  of  intellect 
or  eloquence,  by  simple  self-devotion  and  self-sacri- 
fice, without  any  employment  whatever  of  pecuniary 
means  ; — by  missionaries  in  the  cause  of  Christ,  by 
reformers  of  prisons  and  organizers  of  hospitals,  by 
Sisters  of  Charity,  by  visitors  of  the  poor,  by  cham- 
pions of  the  oppressed ;  by  such  women  as  Eliza- 
beth Fry  and  Florence  Nightingale,  and  such  men 
as  John  Howard  and  William  Wilberforce;  or,  to 
go  further  back  in  history,  by  men  like  our  own, 
John  Eliot,  the  early  apostle  to  the  Indians,  or  like 
that  sainted  Vincent  de  Paul,  whose  memory  has 
been  so  justly  honored  in  France  for  more  than  two 
centuries.  But  philanthropy  of  this  sort,  I  need  not 
say,  stands  on  a  somewhat  diflferent  plane,  and  can- 
not fairly  enter  into  this  comparison. 

It  is  enough  to  say  of  our  lamented  friend,  as 
we  have  seen  and  known  him  of  late,  that  in  him 
were  united — as  rarely,  if  ever,  before  —  the  largest 
desire  and  the  largest  ability  to  do  good  5  that  his 
will  was,  at  least,  commensurate  with  his  wealth; 


17 

and  that  nothing  but  the  limited  extent  of  even  the 
most  considerable  earthly  estate  prevented  his  en- 
joying the  very  antepast  of  celestial  bliss :  — 

"  For  when  the  power  of  imparting  good 
Is  equal  to  the  will,  the  human  soul 
Requires  no  other  heaven." 

And  now,  my  friends,  w^hat  wonder  is  it,  that  all 
that  was  mortal  of  such  a  man  has  come  back  to  us, 
to-day,  with  such  a  convoy,  and  with  such  accom- 
panying honors,  as- well  might  have  befitted  some 
mighty  conqueror,  or  some  princely  hero?  Was  he 
not,  indeed,  a  conqueror  ?  Was  he  not,  indeed, 
a  hero  ?  Oh!  it  is  not  on  the  battle-field,  or  on 
the  blood-stained  ocean,  alone,  that  conquests  are 
achieved  and  victories  won.  There  are  battles  to 
be  fought,  there  is  a  life-long  warfare  to  be  waged, 
by  each  one  of  us,  in  our  own  breasts,  and  against 
our  own  selfish  natures.  And  what  conflict  is 
harder  than  that  which  awaits  the  accumulator  of 
great  wealth  !  Who  can  ever  forget,  or  remember 
without  a  shudder,  the  emphatic  testimony  to  the 
character  of  that  conflict,  which  was  borne  by  our 
blessed  Saviour,  —  who  knew  what  was  in  man  better 
than  any  man  knows  it  for  himself,  —  when  He 
said,  "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God; "  and  when  he  bade  that 
rich  young  man,  "Sell  all  that  he  had  and  distribute 
to  the  poor,  and  then  come  and  follow  him"! 

3 


i8 


It  would  be  doing  grievous  injustice  to  our  la- 
mented friend,  were  we  to  deny  or  conceal  that 
there  were  elements  in  his  character  which  made 
his  own  warfare,  in  this  respect,  a  stern  one.  He 
was  no  stranger  to  the  love  of  accumulation.  He 
was  no  stranger  to  the  passion  for  gaining  and 
saving  and  hoarding.  There  were  in  his  nature 
the  germs,  and  more  than  the  germs,  of  economy 
and  even  of  parsimony;  and  sometimes  they  would 
sprout,  and  spring  up,  in  spite  of  himself.  Nothing 
less  strong  than  his  own  will,  nothing  less  in- 
domitable than  his  own  courage,  could  have 
enabled  him,  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  strive  success- 
fully against  that  greedy,  grudging,  avaricious  spirit, 
which  so  often  besets  the  talent  for  acquisition.  In 
a  thousand  little  ways,  you  might  perceive,  to  the 
last,  how  much  within  him  he  had  contended  against, 
how  much  within  him  he  had  overcome  and  van- 
quished. All  the  more  glorious  and  signal  was  the 
victory!  All  the  more  deserved  and  appropriate 
are  these  trappings  of  triumph,  with  which  his  re- 
mains have  been  restored  to  us !  You  rob  him  of  his 
richest  laurel,  you  refuse  him  his  brightest  crown, 
when  you  attempt  to  cover  up  or  disguise  any  of 
those  innate  tendencies,  any  of  those  acquired  habits, 
any  of  those  besetting  temptations,  against  which  he 
struggled  so  bravely  and  so  triumphantly.    Recount, 


19 


if  you  please,  every  penurious  or  mercenary  act  of 
his  earlier  or  his  later  life,  which  friends  have  ever 
witnessed,  —  if  they  have  ever  witnessed  any,  —  or 
which  malice  has  ever  whispered  or  hinted  at,  — 
and  malice,  we  know,  has  not  spared  him  in  more 
ways  than  one,  —  and  you  have  only  added  to  his 
titles  to  be  received  and  remembered  as  a  hero  and 
a  conqueror. 

As  such  a  conqueror,  then,  you  have  received  him 
from  that  majestic  turreted  Iron-clad,  which  the 
gracious  monarch  of  our  motherland  has  deputed  as 
her  own  messenger  to  bear  him  back  to  his  home.. 
As  such  a  conqueror,  you  have  canopied  his  funeral 
car  with  the  flag  of  his  country;  —  aye,  with  the 
flags  of  both  his  countries,  between  whom  I  pray 
God  that  his  memory  may  ever  be  a  pledge  of 
mutual  forbearance  and  affectionate  regard.  As 
such  a  conqueror,  you  mark  the  day  and  the  hour 
of  his  burial  by  minute-guns,  and  fire  a  farewell 
shot,  it  may  be,  as  the  clods  of  his  native  soil 
are  heaped  upon  his  breast. 

We  do  not  forget,  however,  amidst  all  this  mar- 
tial pomp,  how  eminently  he  was  a  man  of  peace; 
or  how  earnestly  he  desired,  or  how  much  he  had 
done,  to  inculcate  a  spirit  of  peace,  national  and 
international.  I  may  not  attempt  to  enter  here, 
to-day,  into   any  consideration  of  the  influence  of 


20 


his  specific  endowments,  at  home  or  abroad,  Amer- 
ican or  English;  but  I  may  say,  in  a  single  word, 
that  I  think  history  will  be  searched  in  A'^ain  for 
the  record  of  any  merely  human  acts,  recent  or 
remote,  which  have  been  more  in  harmony  with 
that  angelic  chorus,  which,  jiist  as  the  fleet,  with 
this  sad  freight,  had  entered  on  its  funeral  voyage 
across  the  Atlantic,  the  whole  Christian  World  was 
uniting  to  ring  back  again  to  the  skies  from  which 
it  first  was  heard ;  —  any  merely  human  acts,  which 
while,  as  I  have  said,  they  have  waked  a  fresh  and 
more  fervent  echo  of  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  high- 
est," have  done  more  to  promote  "  Peace  on  earth 
and  good-will  towards  men." 

Here,  then,  my  friends,  in  this  home  of  his  in- 
fancy, where,  seventy  years  ago,  he  attended  the 
common  village  school,  and  served  his  first  appren- 
ticeship as  a  humble  shop-boy;  —  here,  where, 
seventeen  years  ago,  his  first  large  public  dona- 
tion was  made,  accompanied  by  that  memorable 
sentiment,  "Education:  a  debt  due  from  present 
to  future  generations;"  —  here,  where  the  monu- 
ments and  memorials  of  his  affection  and  his  mu- 
nificence surround  us  on  every  side,  and  where  he 
had  chosen  to  deposit  that  unique  enamelled  por- 
trait of  the  Queen,  that  exquisite  gold  medal,  the 
gift  of  his  Country,  that  charming  little  autograph 


21 

note  from  the  Empress  of  France,  that  imperial 
photograph  of  the  Pope,  inscribed  by  his  own  hand, 
and  whatever  other  tributes  had  been  most  precious 
to  him  in  life;  —  here,  where  he  has  desired  that  his 
own  remains  should  finally  repose,  near  to  the 
graves  of  his  father  and  mother,  enforcing  that  de- 
sire by  those  touching  words,  almost  the  last  which 
he  uttered,  "  Danvers,  —  Danvers,  —  don't  forget," 
—  here  let  us  thank  God  for  his  transcendent  ex- 
ample; and  here  let  us  resolve,  that  it  shall  neither 
fail  to  be  treasured  up  in  our  hearts,  and  sacredly 
transmitted  to  our  children  and  our  children's  chil- 
dren, nor  be  wholly  without  an  influence  upon  our 
own  immediate  lives.  Let  it  never  be  said  that  the 
tomb  and  the  trophies  are  remembered  and  cher- 
ished, but  the  example  forgotten  or  neglected. 

I  may  not  longer  detain  you,  my  friends,  from 
the  sad  ceremonies  which  remain  to  be  performed 
by  us;  yet  I  cannot  quite  release  you  until  I  have 
alluded,  in  the  simplest  and  briefest  manner,  to  an 
incident  of  the  last  days,  and  almost  the  last  hours, 
of  this  noble  life,  which  has  come  to  me  from  a 
source  which  cannot  be  questioned.  While  he  was 
lying,  seemingly  unconscious,  on  his  death-bed  in 
London,  at  the  house  of  his  kind  friend.  Sir  Curtis 
Lampson,  and  when  all  direct  communication  with 


22 


him  had  been  for  a  time  suspended,  it  was  men- 
tioned aloud  in  his  presence,  in  a  manner,  and  with 
a  purpose,  to  test  his  consciousness,  that  a  highly 
valued  acquaintance  had  called  to  see  him;  but  he 
took  no  notice  of  the  remark.  Not  long  after- 
wards, it  was  stated  in  a  tone  loud  enough  for  him 
to  hear,  that  the  Queen  herself  had  sent  a  special 
telegram  of  inquiry  and  sympathy;  but  even  that 
failed  to  arouse  him.  Once  more,  at  no  long  inter- 
val, it  was  remarked,  that  a  faithful  minister  of  the 
Gospel,  with  whom  he  had  once  made  a  voyage  to 
America,  was  at  the  door;  and  his  attention  was 
instantly  attracted.  That  ^  good  man,' as  he  called 
him  with  his  latest  breath,  was  received  by  him, 
and  prayed  with  him,  more  than  once.  "  It  is  a 
great  mystery,"  he  feebly  observed,  "but  I  shall 
know  all  soon;"  while  his  repeated  Amens  gave 
audible  and  abundant  evidence  that  those  prayers 
were  not  lost  upon  his  ear  or  upon  his  heart.  The 
friendships  of  earth  could  no  longer  soothe  him. 
The  highest  honors  of  the  world,  —  the  kind  atten- 
tions of  a  Sovereign  whom  he  knew  how  to  re- 
spect, admire,  and  love, — could  no  longer  satisfy 
him.  The  ambassador  of  Christ  was  the  only 
visitor  for  that  hour. 

Thus,  we    may   humbly  hope,  was   at   last  ex- 
plained and  fulfilled  for  him,  that  mysterious  saying 


.23 

of  one  of  the  ancient  prophets  of  Israel,  which  he 
had  heard  many  years  before,  as  the  text  of  a  sermon 
by  one  whom  he  knew  and  valued;  which  had  long 
lingered  in  his  memory;  and  which,  by  some  force 
of  association  or  reflection,  had  again  and  again 
been  recalled  to  his  mind,  and  more  than  once,  in 
my  own  hearing,  been  made  the  subject  of  his  re- 
mark: "And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day, 
that  the  light  shall  not  be  clear  nor  dark;  but  it 
shall  be  one  day  which  shall  be  known  to  the  Lord, 
not  day,  nor  night:  but  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  at 
evening  time  it  shall  be  light." 

At  evening  time,  it  was,  indeed,  light  for  him. 
And  who  shall  doubt,  that  when  another  morning 
shall  break  upon  his  brow,  it  shall  be  a  morning 
without  clouds, —  all  light,  and  love,  and  joy, —  for 
"  the  glory  of  God  shall  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb 
shall  be  the  light  thereof"! 

And  so  I  bid  farewell  to  thee,  brave,  honest, 
noble-hearted  friend!  The  village  of  thy  birth 
weeps,  to-day,  for  one  who  never  caused  her  pain 
before.  The  ^  Flower  of  Essex '  is  gathered  at 
thy  grave.  Massachusetts  mourns  thee  as  a  son 
who  has  given  new  lustre  to  her  historic  page;  and 
Maine,  not  unmindful  of  her  joint  inheritance  in 


24 

the  earlier  glories  of  the  parent  State,  has  opened 
her  noblest  harbor,  and  draped  her  municipal  halls 
with  richest,  saddest  robes,  to  do  honor  to  thy 
remains.  New  England,  from  mountain-top  to 
farthest  cape,  is  in  sympathy  with  the  scene,  and 
feels  the  fitness  that  the  hallowed  memories  of 
'  Leyden '  and  ^  Plymouth  '  —  the  refuge  and  the 
rock  of  her  Pilgrim  Fathers  —  should  be  associ- 
ated with  thy  obsequies.  This  great  and  glorious 
Nation,  in  all  its  restored  and  vindicated  union, 
partakes  the  pride  of  thy  life  and  the  sorrow  of  thy 
loss.  In  hundreds  of  schools  of  the  desolated 
South,  the  children,  even  now,  are  chanting  thy 
requiem  and  weaving  chaplets  around  thy  name. 
In  hundreds  of  comfortable  homes,  provided  by 
thy  bounty,  the  poor  of  the  grandest  city  of  the 
world,  even  now,  are  breathing  blessings  on  thy 
memory.  The  proudest  shrine  of  Old  England  has 
unlocked  its  consecrated  vaults  for  thy  repose. 
The  bravest  ship  of  a  navy  '  whose  march  is  o'er  the 
mountain  waves,  whose  home  is  on  the  deep,'  has 
borne  thee  as  a  conqueror  to  thy  chosen  rest;  and, 
as  it  passed  from  isle  to  isle,  and  from  sea  to  sea,  in 
a  circumnavigation  almost  as  wide  as  thy  own 
charity,  has  given  new  significance  to  the  memor- 
able saying  of  the  great  funeral  orator  of  antiquity: 


25 


"  Of  illustrious  men,  the  whole  earth  is  the  sepul- 
chre; and  not  only  does  the  inscription  upon  col- 
umns in  their  own  land  point  it  out,  but  in  that  also 
which  is  not  their  own,  there  dwells  with  every 
one  an  unwritten  memorial  of  the  heart." 

And  now,  around  thee,  are  assembled,  not  only 
surviving  schoolmates  and  old  companions  of  thy 
youth,  and  neighbors  and  friends  of  thy  maturer 
years,  but  votaries  of  Science,  ornaments  of  Litera- 
ture, heads  of  Universities  and  Academies,  fore- 
most men  of  Commerce  and  the  Arts,  ministers  of 
the  Gospel,'delegates  from  distant  States  and  rulers 
of  thy  own  State,  all  eager  to  unite  in  paying  such 
homage  to  a  career  of  grand  but  simple  Benefi- 
cence, as  neither  rank  nor  fortune  nor  learning 
nor  genius  could  ever  have  commanded.  Chiefs 
of  the  Republic,  representatives  and  more  than 
representatives  of  Royalty,  are  not  absent  from  thy 
bier.  Nothing  is  wanting  to  give  emphasis  to 
thy  example.  Nothing  is  wanting  to  fill  up  the 
measure  of  thy  fame. 

But  what  earthly  honor  —  what  accumulation  of 
earthly  honors  —  shall  compare  for  a  moment  with 
the  supreme  hope  and  trust  which  we  all  humbly 
and  devoutly  cherish  at  this  hour,  that  when  the 
struggles  and  the  victories,  the  pangs  and  the  pa- 

4 


26 


geants,  of  time  shall  all  be  ended,  and  the  great 
awards  of  eternity  shall  be  made  up,  thou  mayest 
be  found  among  those  who  are  "  more  than  con- 
querors, through  Him  who  loved  us  "  I 

And   so  we  bid    thee  farewell,   brave,    honest, 
noble-hearted  Friend  of  Mankind ! 


^-C^  51^3*1 


